Happy weekend, everyone! This roundup was actually ready to go earlier in the week – I just needed to write the intro – and then an ice storm hit and took power and internet with it. But it’s back now, which means you get a rare weekend roundup. Because these books were just too good to hold onto any longer!
Emily Wilde’s Encyclopaedia of Faeries (Emily Wilde #1) by Heather Fawcett: The title, I think, is self-explanatory, the book being the journal entries of Cambridge professor Emily Wilde as she conducts research for her encyclopaedia of, well, faeries. She’s accompanied by her faithful canine companion, Shadow, and her mercurial, very un-scholarly colleague, Wendell Bambleby… who she strongly suspects is a faerie himself. Which, naturally, impresses her not a whit. The world-building, shown mostly through Emily’s notes and academic digressions, is comprehensive, if occasionally dry and didactic — which certainly fits Emily’s personality but does slow the plot. Emily’s unemotional, even cold, approach to anything outside her work can make her hard to like sometimes, and she actually shows to best advantage on the rare occasions when someone else takes up her journal and we see her through their eyes, in all her no-nonsense, ever-practical glory. If you enjoyed Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, this is in a similar vein… but much shorter and simpler. My thanks to NetGalley and Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine, Del Rey for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Even When You Lie by Michelle Cruz: By turns smooth and raw, Even When You Lie is hard to put down. Armed with a sharp mind and an insatiable curiousity, our heroine digs into a murder no one wants solved, risking her relationship, her career, and the safety of everyone she loves. The mystery takes us from the glittering heights of Dallas society to the cracked pavement of back alleys and neglected neighborhoods, as seen through the eyes of someone balanced precariously between two worlds. I enjoyed the depiction of and reflections on Texas culture, both the good and the bad – as I always say, no one writes Texas like Texans. And the complicated characters and relationships kept me guessing as much as the question of whodunnit (my favored suspect was entirely too obvious in hindsight). Highly recommended to fans of noir fiction. My thanks to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
Portable Magic: A History of Books and Their Readers by Emma Smith: If you’re at all interested in book history, this is a great volume to pick up. Smith explores books not as “platonic writing” but as “pragmatic books,” which is a great phrase for what I generally and (unpoetically) call the study of books as cultural objects. This is no clear-cut, chronological history of books but more a collection of essays about the different aspects of publishing, consumption, and social trends, everything from the propagandist beginnings of the Gutenberg printing press to shelfies through the centuries and how we use books to shape narratives about ourselves. Fascinating and delightful. My thanks to NetGalley and Knopf, Pantheon, Vintage, and Anchor for providing an eARC in exchange for an honest review.
The World of the Five Gods #1-3 (but mostly #1) by Lois McMaster Bujold: Three full, mostly disconnected novels set in the world of the Five Gods, which I’d already grown to love through the Penric & Desdemona stories. While I enjoyed the second book, Paladin of Souls, the third, The Hallowed Hunt had few elements that worked for me, sadly – but oh, The Curse of Chalion was so much that I love about Bujold’s writing. A dense lore and plot, great characters, and fascinating reflections on mortality and immortality, humans and gods. If you enjoy high fantasy, I strongly recommend The Curse of Chalion. Plus, it comes with one of the sweetest found families ever, as a broken, abandoned man finds not only people he will fight for – but who will fight right back for him.
–b
Book It With Becca 